By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Dean of Postgraduate School, University of Ibadan, Professor Jonathan Babalola has disclosed that about 5,000 candidates admission out of 15,000 that applied for the institution’s postgraduate degree programmes have been offered admission for the new academic session.
Professor Babalola dropped this hint while speaking shortly after presiding over the 73rd Interdisciplinary Research Discourse of the premier university entitled Synthetic Biology: From Biology to Engineering delivered by Professor James Sturgis of the Aix-Marseille University, France.
The Dean emphasized that that there will be no going back in the determination by the University of Ibadan Post Graduate school towards continuing to ensure quality control of its applicants by setting aptitude test (Use of English) which majority of the applicants failed.
He stressed that the University of Ibadan postgraduate school which has been designated as Center of Excellence for Postgraduate studies now has more candidates interested in pursuing their graduate degrees in UI.
Declaring that many are looking to UI to crown their undergraduate degrees,he assured that the institution will continue to maintain standards and quality to ensure that the best of applicants gain admission to the premier university.
In his lecture, the Professor of Biology from Aix-Marseille University, France, Professor James Sturgis urged Universities and Government of Nigeria to invest in Synthetic biology to develop solutions to improve crops, livestock and health of its citizenry, saying, .”it is a low investment with huge returns”.
Professor Sturgis while stressing that synthetic biology investment will ensure the independence of Nigeria from being at the mercy of foreign interests and multinationals companies advocated appropriate establishment of legal and regulatory framework to ensure bio-safety, bio-security and ethics.
Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan, Professor Idowu Olayinka who was the Chairman at the lecture promised that the university will ensure partnership with the Aix-Marseille University to develop fully the area of synthetic biology.
